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1.2.3-Takethewatch
Quatrevingt-treize, 1.2.3, NOBLESSE ET ROTURE MÊLÉES I was so excited at the prospect of a dialogue-heavy chapter—''surely this will be easy to read, and I’ll get some idea of what’s actually going on!'' Ha! First they go into a lot of bird metaphors (every one of which I have to look up, only to find out yep, it’s yet another bird), apparently to explain why they’re not entirely happy about the Paysan being a prince or maybe a chief or something. And then they go on to talk about a lot of guys I don’t know but who apparently really suck at their jobs (possibly because they are commoners? I’m not sure which side they’re on either!) But then we get into some stuff I get! Because they start talking about war in general, and how “il faut ennuyer l’ennemi, lui disputer le moulin, le buisson, le fossé, le caillou, lui faire de mauvaises querelles, tirer parti de tout, veiller à tout, massacrer beaucoup, faire des exemples, n’avoir ni sommeil ni pitié”—basically, raze the countryside, destroy everything you can, have pity on no one. And of course, I’m thinking of the widow from the woods in 1.1.1 here—this was exactly what the war did to her part of the country, and we are all mad about that. So at this point I’m pretty sure that, whichever side they’re on (I’m guessing the whites), these aren’t guys we’re supposed to like. And then we get the ultimate confirmation of their sliminess: "Les grands actes de guerre … veulent de la noblesse dans qui les accomplit." And since Hugo wants to make sure we get the point, in the next line after this lofty sentiment about the great acts of war requiring nobility, these assholes talk about a father who killed his own son, and say that it was well done, even if the man was a commoner. Once again, so much for feeling like I’ve cleverly picked up on something—but at least it’s confirmation that I am in fact understanding it! Hm, and it seems they continue in this same theme for some time. Incidentally, I have a theory about this thing about the pikemen—pikes were basically an obsolete weapon at this time, right? (Wikipedia tells me they basically died out around 1700, when muskets became widespread enough that pikemen were just being marched out onto the battlefield to die before they got near enough to the enemy to do anything with their pikes—although they were used effectively from time to time over the next couple hundred years). It kind of sounds to me like this Boulaivilliers guy was trying to teach the pikemen strategy or defensive forms or something that might keep them alive? But our lovely friend Vieuville wants no part of that, of course. (Really, what do you expect from a man whose name sounds exactly like the words “old city”? Certainly not innovation or a willingness to break with traditional fighting styles or class divisions! On a related note, is Boisberthelot a pun? I guess I will troll the discussion after I finish my own post for any clues.) Anyway, before we end (with a wonderful cliffhanger, I wonder what happened?) we get one more example of the viciousness of the war that these two love so much: “Ceci est la guerre sans miséricorde. L’heure est aux sanguinaires. Les régicides ont coupé la tête à Louis XVI, nous arracherons les quatre membres aux régicides … Hyène contre hyène.” Which is mostly just more of the same thing we’ve been hearing all chapter—there’s no mercy in war, we have to be ferocious and bloody, we’ll tear the regicides limb from limb, etc. But what’s interesting in this iteration of the theme is the reminder that both sides are committing the violence. Whites, blues, it doesn’t matter—both are hyenas. So even out of the mouths of slimy aristocrats, we get the message again: The sides are irrelevant; war is a brutal, ugly thing no matter what.